Police visited woman's vandalized home night before she was allegedly slain by husband

CANOGA PARK - Neighbors of a mother of two who was stabbed to death Saturday morning allegedly by her estranged husband said a man in a baseball cap who resembled the elementary school teacher smashed the garage door windows of the woman's Canoga Park town home with a hammer Friday.

Michelle Kane, 43, was stabbed multiple times and left to die in the street outside a West Hills home of friends where she had taken refuge from her husband, officials have said. Michael Rodney Kane, 46, was located in a Yucca Valley hotel and arrested Monday. He is expected to be arraigned on murder and other charges today at the Van Nuys Courthouse.

Officials Tuesday confirmed that four officers in two police cars responded to Michelle Kane's home, which is located in a gated complex on Teri Court and had been vandalized, on Friday after receiving a 9-1-1 call from the distressed woman at 8 p.m. Earlier that day, the 43-year-old paralegal had visited the LAPD's Topanga station to report that her husband, an L.A. Unified teacher from whom she had separated, had violated a restraining order.

Michael Kane is a suspect in Friday's vandalism, said Homicide Detective Dave Peteque of the LAPD Topanga Station.

"They know (Michael Kane) had a restraining order on him and this (vandalism) happened on Friday evening; they should have looked for him, they should have apprehended him that Friday night and Michelle would not be dead on Saturday," said Ella Jackson, who lives across the street in the same complex. "The system failed her."

The felony vandalism incident was initially reported as a burglary but officers checked the home and found no suspect inside, Peteque said. The damage, estimated at $1,500, included the smashing of the front door's stained glass window, he said.

LAPD is investigating the entire affair, including the alleged violation of the restraining order, the felony vandalism and the homicide in addition to other alleged incidents involving her husband, Peteque said. He declined to state what those other incidents were.

"A temporary restraining order is a piece of paper; it's not an armed guard walking around the victim," Peteque said. Investigators, he added, are speaking with the officers who responded to Michelle's home Friday night to find out exactly what was said.

Jackson said her teenage daughter, who was listening to music upstairs, heard loud noises outside and saw a man with a large hammer breaking the garage door windows of Michelle's home. The mother said she looked outside through a window and saw the same thing. Less than an hour later, after the man had gone, Michelle arrived with a female friend, noticed the damage, parked outside Jackson's residence and made a phone call to police. Police officers arrived within about 20 minutes, they said.

"This man was full of rage," Jackson said. "The way he was breaking the windows, he was like a monster. I said to myself, Thank God Michelle wasn't here."

The couple had married in 2001, bought the home in 2002, and Michelle had filed for divorce in December 2012. Jackson said Michael sometimes seemed erratic in his behavior and she often heard the couple fighting in the garage. Neighbors say they stopped seeing the husband and his car at the home roughly three months ago.

Gavin Kidwell, who has lived next door to Kane for the last couple years, said Michelle told his girlfriend Friday that Michael was upset about an upcoming court date related to a restraining order.

"Michelle was cleaning up the (broken) glass and she said (to Kidwell's girlfriend), 'I'm sorry you have to deal with this crazy psycho next to you,'" Kidwell said. "She felt bad."

The next day Michelle was dead.

Shortly after Michelle and her husband split up, the town home was burglarized of her jewelry and the children's Nintendo. Michelle suspected that Michael was the one who did it -- even though he acted as if he didn't know anything about it -- and started thinking about getting a restraining order at that time, according to the neighbors.

"I just feel like the police really dropped the ball; it's like, what do we have them for?" Kidwell said. "I think they should have immediately found him and put him on a 72-hour hold and she'd probably still be alive once he broke the restraining order and came and broke the windows."

Michelle Kane, in court documents filed in April seeking a restraining order, said her husband threatened to kill her on several occasions, including "to slice my throat and behead me" and had "threatened to kill me with piano wire and an ice pick."

She had initially delayed seeking a restraining order, the documents said, because she feared it would trigger him.

Michelle also said her husband "has a long history of drug abuse" and she said she believed he had an undiagnosed bipolar disorder. She said he abused a variety of drugs in the past, including heroin and methamphetamine. He was hospitalized in May 2012 due to suicidal thoughts brought on what she believed to be "a combination of stress and drug use."

While Michael's mood has always been unpredictable, "he has become increasingly threatening, violent and abusive" since she filed for a dissolution of their marriage in December. She said she was "in constant fear" of him.

Meanwhile, Michelle's co-workers at Nemeck & Cole Attorneys at Law, where a grief counselor was brought in Monday, said Tuesday they were mourning the loss of a brilliant and conscientious professional paralegal who was also a doting mother. Her kids, ages 6 and 2, were her first priority, they said, and dozens of their photos adorned her office.

"Her children would light up her face; you could see it, " said Teri Leahy, who worked with Michelle about four years and was quickly befriended by her. "I never heard her say a bad word about anyone."

Michelle's boss, administrator Barbara Cole, said the office was grieving someone who felt to them like family.